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BEIJING, August 1 (TMTPOST) -- NIO’s Battery Swap Station Plant in Hungary will be put into operation in September, which is set to improve the company"s business layout in the European market.
The planned operation at the plant was disclosed last Friday by Shen Fei, Senior Vice President of NIO. It will be the EV manufacturer’s first overseas plant, with close proximity to its primary overseas target market.
The plant, located in Biotorbaghi, plans to produce 240 battery exchange stations per year. About 4,000 battery exchange stations are expected to be in use worldwide by 2025.
It will serve as the “manufacturing, service and research and development center for the company’s battery products and services in Europe, with the main activities being production and after-sales service for battery switching stations, training and R&D.
Following NIO’s presence in Norway, it aims to enter Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden and Denmark in the second half of 2022. As of July 31, NIO sold 750 cars in Norway, including 200 in 2021, according to data from elbilstatistikk.
In May 2021, NIO announced its plan to enter the Norway market. In October 2021, it opened the first sales outlet in Oslo, the capital of Norway. The company also announced it would launch 20 battery swap stations in Norway by the end of 2022. However, the progress was slower than expected. In January 2022, the first battery swap station was put in operation. .
The presence of the battery swap manufacturing plant in Europe will help NIO accelerate the layout of local battery swap plants.
An industry insider familiar with the European car market commented that only by entering major markets like Germany and France, can a company claim to enter the European market.
NIO hopes that the swap stations will help the product enter the German market. Qin Lihong, president of NIO Motors, has explained that the European electricity market differs greatly from the Chinese market, and electricity prices are often in dynamic change. For example, Germany has multiple electricity prices per hour; a battery swap station with energy storage and two-way battery swap has its own advantages in terms of environmental protection, electricity costs and the operation system.
